Redemption
by Oiche
Summary: A ghost comes back from Spike's past to haunt him. Another version as to how Brody entered the Scoob's lives
1. Chapter 1

Spike rolled over

Spike rolled over. He couldn't get back to sleep, lately, in place of the vivid dreams of Buffy, he'd been dreaming of Brody again. Every night for the last two weeks, ever since he'd begun sleeping with the Slayer. In the dreams Brody begged him not to forget her and reminded him that she was the only woman to love him truly, other than his mum. He shivered as a wave of sorrow hit him, a century and a quarter on and he was still dreaming of his beautiful fiancé.

As he rolled over he realised that he was no longer alone in the bed. Warmth was radiating from the space beside him. His eyes snapped open and saw something that he would never have expected, no matter how long he'd been on the Hellmouth. Brody lay next to him, exactly as he remembered her. Long, ebony lashes on huge, closed eyes that contrasted sharply with her ivory skin. She was petite with willowy, wiry limbs. Her face was angelic and her rosy lips were pursed in her sleep. Her honeyed tresses swept across his silk pillows and her shoulders. She was dressed in a white, gossamer Victorian nightdress.

Spike fell back out of the bed and tears sprang to his eyes. This couldn't be happening. It was a trick, a sick, perverted, trick. Who in God's name was doing this? And why? His heart ached for her to be real. No matter how much he loved Buffy, he could never love her as completely as he had the young girl in his bed. He backed himself against a wall and gathered his knees to his chest, rocking backwards and forwards as that hideous night flooded his memory. When the messenger had arrived to the door with news of Brody's untimely, cruel demise.

_London, 1870._

_RAP RAP RAP RAP RAP!!_

_William was roused from his restful slumber and dreams of the life he and his beloved would surely have together once they were wed. At first he lay in bed and ignored the door, the butler would soon sort out what ever was going on. He heard the door downstairs open and the Butler crankily address a young messenger. Then he heard his Mum's voice from the top of the stairs, across the hall. The Butler's steps thudded up the stairs as a wail of despair ripped through his mother. _

_William sat bolt upright, threw on a dressing gown and dashed out the door of his rooms. His mother sat crumpled on the ground with the Butler consoling her, she raised a tear stained face and looked at him with devastated eyes._

"_Oh, William!" she whispered unsteadily. William's heart constricted as she looked at him with pity, sadness and pain, it exploded when she continued "Not our Brody."_

"_Brody?" he questioned and his mother nodded sadly. Fear gripped William, he direly hoped that his idea of what had happened was wrong and he sped across the landing. He gripped his mother's shoulders and shouted in a quivering voice "What about her!?"_

"_She's gone, dearest, she's lost to us forever."_

_William let go of her as if she were scorching and backed away. His hand slapped over his mouth as he tried not to be sick. He backed right to the edge of the staircase, lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs. He welcomed the numbing blackness that took him._

Spike hadn't woken for three days after that and he'd believed it all to be a dream. When he saw his normally jovial mother walk into the room wearing black and a matching expression of grief, he knew. It was real. Brody was gone.

And now some disgusting bastard was doing this to him. Letting him see what he could never have. Suddenly, for the first time ever he regretted his turning at Drusilla's hands. If he'd died as the good, innocent, mama's boy, poet William then his soul would be at rest. His clean soul would be with her. He would never go where she was now. Not after all the horrible things he'd done. Oh God! The things he'd done, if Brody had seen them, she'd be horrified. She'd be ashamed of him.

Spike sat in the corner, rocking back and forth, his eyes never leaving the torturous apparition in his bed.

Buffy trudged through Restfield Cemetery. Life was majorly sucking ass and she needed Spike's touch to feel. Lord, she needed it to feel something other than misery. For hours at a time she could just forget. She could forget her crappy job, her bratty sister who didn't seem to want to compromise, her pain from her mother's death, Riley's departure and return with a perfect life, her meddling friends and the loss of the serenity of heaven.

She barely looked at a fledgling as she staked it while stomping past. Buffy kicked Spike's door open and shouted loudly "Spike!"

No response.

Odd, usually he came a runnin' the second she walked through the door. 'Maybe he's in the shower or something…Ooooh! Fun!' Buffy thought.

Buffy heard a woman's shriek of surprise from downstairs as she continued her way into the crypt towards the ladder to the lower level. She frowned, what was another woman doing here? Spike loved her too much to be fooling around with anyone else, or at least he claimed to.

She jumped down into the lower level and saw a quivering Spike leaning against the wall staring with wide eyes at a gorgeous girl sitting up in his bed.

"Dieu!" the girl exclaimed as she looked about her "What is happening?" The girl looked over and spotted Spike. "W-william? Where in the name of the Lord are we?"

Spike failed to respond and the girl unfolded herself from the bed. She took a shaky step out of the bed and onto the floor. "William? Talk to me!"

Spike continued to stare blankly at her, the girl coloured with worry. "Pour l'amour de Dieu! Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?"

The girl noticed Buffy for the first time. "Mademoiselle? Qu'est-ce qu'il a?"

"Uh, sorry I don't speak French." Buffy stammered, unsure of what was going on.

"Oh! I apologise! I was just inquiring as to what is wrong with my fiancé? I presumed you were some of the new help from France." the girl said in a female version of Giles' speech, her head was cocked in a Spike-like manner and her beautiful blue eyes searched Buffy's face before turning immediately back to Spike.

Spike straightened when Buffy addressed the girl. "You can see her too?" he asked Buffy.

"Of course I can! Are you high?" Buffy said, confused and therefore angry.

"Brody." he mumbled reverently, his eyes pinned to the girl. "Oh, grace á les cieux!" he exclaimed as he scrambled to his feet.

Spike and the girl rushed to each other and he swept her into his arms. "C'est un miracle!" he sobbed into the crook of her neck.

"Sweet William! Why do you cry?" the girl asked but was silenced by Spike crushing his lips to hers in a joyous kiss. She cried in sympathy for the pain of her beloved, even if she did not know why he was saddened. Their tears mingled and ran into each others' mouths.

When Spike finally pulled away, remembering her need to breathe, she looked up at him in shock. "What has come over you William? And what in God's name have you done to your hair?" she pondered aloud, playing with a platinum curl.

He stroked his hands through her luscious locks and inhaled her scent; passionflower, lavender, honeysuckle…demon? Spike stared at her in surprise.

"There's demon in you, luv?"

"Yes. When did you start talking like that?"

"While ago. What happened to you?"

"I don't know! Where am I? Who's that woman? Why are you both dressed so strangely? When were you turned? What's going on?" she babbled, bewilderment breaking her down.

"Spike!" Buffy shouted, sick of being ignored, pissed with this girl for mauling what was hers, confused by everything that was happening. The two Brits turned to look at her. "Who the fuck is she and what is going on?"

The girl looked at Buffy in shock and Spike looked between the two women as if torn. He

then calmly addressed Buffy "Slayer, this is my fiancé." At Buffy's gasp he continued "Who died over a century ago."

The girl in his arms fainted and Buffy wasn't long following her.


	2. Chapter 2

Spike looked down at his bed where two very different women lay, both having fainted, across his bed. They represented his present and past and made his future more uncertain than ever. Both held a huge piece of his heart and both he loved with all he was.

He loved them differently however; Brody was his first love, that of childhood and young adulthood, she was pure love. Buffy was the love he could never have, she was the love he strived for and yearned to earn. Brody loved him eternally, irrevocably and had been snatched from him too soon. Buffy may never love him and she did not even appear to like him most of the time. Brody was gentle, delicate, elegant, joyous, exuberant, loving, tender, beautiful, intelligent, curious, attentive, innocent, creative…

As Spike looked at Brody now, listing her qualities in his mind and remembering their times together, he was overcome by how much he had missed her and how much he loved her still. She had left a gaping hole in his life when she had died, had taken a part of him to her death with her. He had repressed all thoughts of her for nearly a century now and yet the remembered loss felt as fresh and painful as ever. He had never truly gotten over her death, not completely, who could let the truest of loves be laid down?

When she had been his, he had been a very different man. Not long had that word, "man", even been applicable to him. It had still sounded strange to his ears. He had been preparing to head to university with her hand assured and a long, leisurely engagement ahead of them. Seventeen, they had only been seventeen at the time. She was leaving the next month to study art and language in France. He smiled at the thought, gentle though she was; she had been a strong person. Few ladies pursued studies yet she had insisted; her logic and wit challenging and beating all those around her. He had always been so proud of her, for her beauty and fierce intelligence that had been so obvious to those around her, and for the simple fact that she had chosen him.

He clearly remembered the day he had proposed. Scandalous as it was, they had met that night, snuck from their homes and to the garden's end where their houses' properties merged from manicured yard to tangled forest. Their place since childhood had been a cave behind a tiny waterfall, accessed by a sloping hole some yards away. They met like this often, it was not proper, but they had done so for so long that it was acceptable in their minds. In fact they had done so before they were mature enough to understand how they loved each other. But that night he had had a difficult time escaping from his father's colleagues who all wished to talk about the times at Oxford they had had and he was sure to have. An hour later he had managed to excuse himself politely and make his escape.

_London, 1870._

_Moonlight was all William had to guide him through the gardens and then the thick growth of their "forest". It was really a grove, but since childhood he and Brody had taken to calling it their forest. It sounded rather more impressive, they thought. He found the hole that led down a narrow passage to their cavern. He could hear the slap of the water against the stone and the whoosh as it was swept into the river below. The cave was dark as his foot dropped finally to the ground of the heart of the space. He tried the scan the twilight for Brody but failed to find her._

"_Brody?"_

_He heard a swish of skirts and the cat-like pad of slippered feet. Turning, he saw Brody's lithe body swathed in an almost transparent white night-dress come hurtling towards him. She flung her form at him and, stronger than she looked, propelled them to the floor._

"_Ooof!" William exhaled as all the air was driven from his chest._

_Brody lifted her head from his chest and looked down at him worriedly. She shimmied up his body so that her face overhung his and looked into his eyes. "Are you alright?" she queried as locks of her long hair fell over her shoulder and began to tickle his face._

_William brushed the sweet-smelling curtain of soft hair behind her ear and marvelled once again at just how exceptionally breath-taking and heart-breaking she was to look at. Her eyes softened and relaxed at his expression and she peered back at him adoringly. "I am quite alright" he whispered gently._

"_Good" was all she managed to say back as she flashed a beatific smile at him._

_William realised the inappropriate position they lay in upon the cave floor but he dared not to spoil this moment, besides which no one would see them here. Brody laughed at the fierce look of internal struggle on his face. "Never the rogue and ever the gentleman," she murmured._

_William reddened at her teasing and watched her push herself from the ground. Once she stood over him she reached out a hand to help him up. William took it and remembered all the times she had aided him after a fall when they were children. When they both were standing Brody turned and headed deeper into the cavern to their particular spot. The rock was smooth and sat in a pool of moonlight spilling through a hole in the roof of the cave. Her hair shone in the pool of the light and she looked absolutely angelic to him. He sat next to her and their hands reached instinctively for each other as they had for the past fourteen years. _

"_I missed you today," Brody said as she looked at the water poring past the mouth of the cave._

"_And I you, were it not for father's friends I would have found you."_

"_How are we going to cope when I leave for France in two months? I don't think I can bear not seeing you!" Brody's composure had snapped and she turned huge, watery eyes to face him, her nose twitched imperceptibly and her mouth formed a pout of its own accord._

"_I don't know, my heart breaks every time I think of it! I lie awake tormented, I remember all the time and sadness swallows me whole!"_

_Brody scooted closer and leaned her face to him. William could smell her sweet breath and feel the warmth of it against his skin. As always, the awareness of her proximity made his attraction to her painfully obvious. He cursed his body's responsiveness to her approach. "What are you doing, Dee?" he asked her suspiciously._

_Brody failed to answer him and instead leaned closer still to him, her body too closing the gap between them. Eventually she stood and sat down on his lap. William was shocked._

"_Bro-" his words of confusion and sensibleness were cut short and left unsaid as Brody pressed her lips to his. He froze for a moment, it wasn't like they had never kissed before, but it was never like this, it was on the cheek or the briefest meeting of their lips. Brody was now arched against him and kissing him fervently, her arms were slung around his neck and he could feel her breasts pressed against his chest. Her tongue slipped from between her parted lips and sought entry against his, weakness that did not need conscience action to be put into practise came to pass and his mouth opened to accommodate her. At the sensation of her warm and distinctly feminine form against him and the moan that rumbled from deep within her chest to make its way into his mouth he came utterly undone. He now moved his mouth against hers and tentatively his tongue. His arms encircled her and he crushed her to him. She snuggled with delight against his chest. _

_When breathing became too much of a necessity to ignore they parted, panting slightly. Both sets of eyes were widened in surprise at what had just happened. Brody's hand slapped over her mouth and she looked apologetically at him, "I'm so sorry!"_

_William stared at her unsure of what to do but certain that she had absolutely nothing to apologise for. "Brody, no. Never tell me that you are sorry for what we just did."_

_She nodded and looked ashamed, "Still, you must think me such an unruly beast."_

_Her exclamation appalled him, "Never!"_

_Brody eyed him hopefully, "Truly?" _

"_Truly," he replied forcefully._

_Brody moved a smidgeon upon his lap and froze as William had moments before. She frowned in confusion and William's face flooded with heat. He knew exactly what had her perplexed. "Brody, I…" he did not know what to say._

"_Do you have something in your pocket?" Brody asked with the innocence to be expected of a lady of her stature._

"_No" he gritted out in utter mortification._

"_Then what- oh!" Brody went quiet. Then a smile crept onto her face. "Then you must have liked this, and it can happen again before I part from you for so long?"_

_William had been expecting a squeal of horror and disgust, not this. He gazed at her in surprise._

_The cat-like smile was now firmly in place. Brody moved her position so that she straddled his legs. "Brody!" William cried out in shock._

"_What?" she whispered hotly against his ear._

"_Enough of this, it's not proper!"_

"_Who cares about 'proper'; we're soul-mates, true-loves, made for each other. What does anything else matter?"_

"_No, we'll do this right!" He took her wrists and held her back from him. She pouted and looked upon him lustfully, yet despite his want for her he did not relent._

"_Then marry me! And within a year we may do whatever we want!"_

_William stared at her reverently "You want me to marry you?"_

"_Yes, of course I do!"_

_William lifted her to her feet. "Then we do this correctly," he said as he kneeled before her "Broderique St James, may I have the ridiculously honourable honour of making you my wife forevermore?"_

"_Yes!" _

_William stood once more and she jumped into his arms. He hugged her tight to him and swung her round as he laughed with joy._

Spike remembered that moment with utter elation and looked upon the young woman who had loved his awkward self; the woman who loved him for exactly who he was. The woman he had grown up with and loved from the age of three and been in love with from the age of thirteen. This was the woman who had picked him up, encouraged him, made him laugh, helped him study, made him feel special and loved, shared every secret with and told everything to time and time again. Spike realised suddenly, very rapidly that he loved her more than anything else in the world.

Sadly, as her eyes fluttered open, so did another pair, filled with anger and confrontation rather than adoration and love.


End file.
